The summer of 2019 has seen a variety of news reports and stories announcing and celebrating the accomplishments of diversity, inclusivity, and socio-political progress across the entertainment industries.

Few relationships are as significant as our friendships. The Buddha was once asked by his cousin, Ananda, “Is friendship part of the path?” The Buddha’s response, “No Ananda, friendship is the whole path,” suggesting the momentous power and meaning attributed to friendships. Certainly, close friendships can be as just as important to us as familial bonds. Conversely, the absence of friends can cause feelings of loneliness and isolation. Although the general psychological and biological benefits of friendship have been well documented, the actual experience of friendship is a deeply personal one. Not only do we each have our own views on what friendship means, we each have our own approach to choosing our friends.

Humour seems to be an essential feature of human life – ‘the ability to be amused by things, the way in which people see that some things are amusing, or the quality of being amusing’ (Merriam-Webster). It is not just about jokes but a way of looking at the world. Individually, it is beneficial to health, relieving negative energy and invigorating the mind and the body. Socially, it is an indicator of frankness and sociability. Economically, it generates communication, improves teamwork and increases efficiency. Politically, it is an important form of protest and disobedience. Historically, it has proven to be a powerful weapon in times of crisis. And it can be wielded negatively, as a weapon or entrée into dark social arenas such as racism or hatred.

The annual Siegel/McDaniel Award, sponsored by the Philip Roth Society, recognizes high-quality graduate student papers written within the past year on any aspect of Philip Roth’s work.

We recommend that faculty encourage their students to submit papers, and we welcome submissions from Roth Society members and non-members alike.

Eligible graduate students should submit a clean copy of their 10-15 page essay, double-spaced, in 12 point Times New Roman font to Maggie McKinley, the Philip Roth Society Program Director, at mmckinle@harpercollege.edu.

Tantalizing, alluring and dangerous all at once, the erotic is one of the many great mysteries of the human experience. It crosses racial, ethnic, social, socio-economic, political, educational and age-related boundaries. It causes intense joy and excruciating pain. And it motivates demonstrations of both love and madness, and everything in between. Fragments of letters between long-separated lovers… carved phalluses and voluptuous stone goddesses… music that makes our hearts yearn for something we cannot name… desire and passion that courses through us at the mention of another… all of this and more informs our lives, shapes our perceptions, and guides our relationships.

In 1970, Toni Morrison published The Bluest Eye, which prominently features black female children and adolescents, who she considered to be the “most vulnerable, most undescribed, not taken seriously" characters in literature. Since that time, many authors have paid increased attention to black girls in their works; yet, a great deal of these children and adolescents still commonly exist as backstory or props for more centralized adult characters. However, as Afrofuturism offers broadened representations of and opportunities for African Americans in literature, the genre can also extend fundamental freedoms and alternative realities to black girl characters.

Inviting paper abstracts for a proposed seminar for the upcoming American Comparative Literature Association conference, to be held in Chicago, March 19-22, 2020. Submit abstracts by September 23, 2019, via the ACLA website: https://www.acla.org/legal-forms.

CFP for NeMLA 2020, March 5-8. Boston, MA Panel Session: Visibility of the Invisible: The Idea, Theory, and Ontology of Trace

This panel invites proposals to examine the notion, theory, idea, and ontology of the trace and the ways in which it can be deployed in literature, critical theory, image studies, art, film, and other media and disciplines.

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From its rudimentary manifestations as smoke and fire and footprint, to theological significations of the image of Jesus on the Shroud of Turin, the trace, as a visible marker of an absent presence, generates a compelling milieu to meditate on the proliferation of meaning in text and image.

“Transsexualité, transidentité: un tabou français?” (“Transsexuality, transidentity: a French taboo?”[1]): such was the title chosen by the online French news magazine France Info for an article published in 2015[2]that discussed the lack of visibility trans(gender/sexual) people still experience in French society. Indeed, there has been an increasing visibility of trans individuals in film and TV in recent years.

The College English Association, a gathering of scholar-teachers in English studies, welcomes proposals for presentations on Book History and Textual Criticism, for our 51st annual conference. Submit your proposal at www.cea-web.org

Michele Lockhart seeks contributors for her fifth collection of essays, which will analyze the language used by female candidates as they vie to be the 46th President of the United States and first female President of the United States.

In a 2011 Economist Prospero blog entitled "After the Unthinkable," the effects of 9/11 on literature was compared to those of World War II in that it "will continue to be a marking point." As we approach the twentieth anniversary of September 11, 2001, this panel seeks to move beyond representations of the day itself to explore the various nuances of post-9/11 literature by looking at how the long political and cultural aftermath have left their mark on literary and visual culture.

According to a recent report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, nearly 1.5 million people are incarcerated in the United States. Results from various organizations indicate that people who are incarcerated generally have lower formal education than people who have not been incarcerated. Such findings indicate that regardless of the actual prison sentence a person receives, it becomes a type of life sentence when a lack of education denies full participation in society.

Depending on the institution, the department, the politics, and the history of a space, composition and literature faculty often face constant pressure to legitimize or explain the work that we do. However, few opportunities are available to do so in real and tangible ways with departments and faculty outside of our own. This panel seeks to explore the ways that writing and English courses function within and across institutions throughout the country in an effort to develop real-time strategies that increase the visibility of our work, including its interdisciplinarity. How can we increase collaboration with faculty outside of our own silos in order to foster a stronger writing culture across campuses?